Energy: Modernizing the Corporate Culture from Traditional to Sustainable

Company X had been operating for many years in pseudo-monopoly status; eventually three major competitors entered the market. Rapidly changing energy, economic, and competitive environment had placed Company X’s ability to meet its business objectives at risk as it moved into a new era of clean, renewable, and sustainable energy sourcing.

Background

Company X required significantly more focus on meeting customer needs, and as a result, its cost-centered/geographically-oriented culture needed to shift to enable the business to implement its new growth objectives and enhance financial performance.
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To address these strategic issues, Company X’s Vision and Strategic Priorities were reformed and needed to be rolled out to, and understood by, employees at all levels of the organization.Additionally, Company X had been structured along functional lines with decision-making authority centered at the top of the organization. The organization suffered from a “silo” effect that inhibited shared decision-making, accountability, and effective communications. Lines of communication were undefined, fragmented, and lacking discipline. Communications required delineation and a defined process flow that would align with the needed organizational restructure and goals. Existing leaders and managers required additional skills and experience to be successful in the new operating environment that required them to think like “business owners”.

The Solution

Hand & Associates drove critical thought processes to solicit the input and ideas from the company’s key leaders and strategic thinkers. Hand & Associates jointly lead the project team(s) deploying assessment tools, evaluation criteria, and other methods that delivered the achievement of the project objectives. The phases of the project included: evaluation and assessment, design and implementation of the key project deliverables.
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The project utilized a transition team structure with leads, facilitators, subject matter experts, a designee for change management, and project scheduler.
Key decisions, especially related to personnel assignments, were recommended by the project team to the Executive Committee. Decisions related to the organizational structure, filling positions, and other personnel related matters were made by the Executive Committee after consultation with appropriate managers and Human Resources to ensure alignment with affirmative action plans, bargaining unit agreements, internal staffing plans, and other critical considerations.

Strategic Response

The scope included:

Examination of the newly formed Company Vision Statement, Value Proposition, and Five-Year Strategic Priorities

Process for organizational redesign

Identification and validation that the design was compatible with the existing and/or modified business systems and processes

Design and diagram of business processes/maps

Gap analysis

Change management process and documentation

Senior leadership development program designed to identify and enhance executive competencies and leadership skills, including individual executive coaching sessions.

Focus

A management development plan was also developed to focused on building skills, such as financial acumen, strong people skills, broader exposure to the competitive landscape and related business assumptions, strong operational skills, and the capability and tools to effectively interface across organizational and geographic boundaries.

Employee development plans, goals, and objectives were created in alignment with Company X’s Vision and Strategic Priorities so that each employee understood their role in shaping the strategic direction of the company.

The scope included interviews with designated employees and/or groups of employees as determined by the project management.
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The scope of management’s role was to lead the project, facilitate dialogue, develop strategic objectives, employ the change tools that were introduced by Hand & Associates, and ensure that appropriate resources were deployed for a successful accomplishment of the objectives. In addition, management was accountable for ensuring that team participants, including subject matter experts, sub-teams, etc., were accountable for achieving their project deliverables on time and within the project’s parameters.

Hand & Associates’ role was to provide strategic direction and project management, professional expertise and guidance, facilitation skills, evaluative criteria, and assessment tools to assist Company X’s management to successfully achieve the project’s deliverables.

The Results

Following the implementation phase Company X reported $40 million in savings due to the newly developed efficiencies. This represented over 16,000% ROI on Hand & Associates OD professional fees for the entire project.